PERSON

That’s right. Today, I’m talking about the unspeakable stuff. The stuff that’s slowly killing the social fabric, the environment, and at least half of the women you know. It’s the stuff that’s been prescribed to great swathes of women for several decades, who suffered from acne, polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, or image-conscious parents…it’s the silver bullet for modern “hysteria”… it’s a lobotomy in a pill…it’s The Pill.

I interviewed hormone expert and fertility coach Bianca Pennington on Girlboss, Interrupted. In the episode, Pennington explains how chronic birth control essentially makes women’s bodies “forget” how to ovulate and produce progesterone: the hormonal processes responsible for keeping your mood high, keeping your skin clear, keeping your periods painless, and sustaining a pregnancy.

PLACE

But it’s not individual female bodies that are rendered dysfunctional by birth control. While Alex Jones was mocked for his comments about the chemicals in our water turning the frogs gay, as it turns out, once again, he was right all along.

A recent report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that birth-control hormones excreted by women, flushed into waterways, and eventually into drinking water can also impact fish fertility up to three generations after exposure—raising questions about their effects on humans, who are consuming the drugs without even knowing it in each glass of water they drink.

This is another great time to bring up water filters: an absolute necessity in case of emergency and for parents who care about their children’s future fertility. I’m a Berkey Filter evangelist. Since buying the Berkey (a beloved brand known to partner with all kinds of dissident influencers, like Bernadine Bluntly), I’ve seen improvements in my own hormones, hair, and skin. Berkey water filter systems are technically water purifiers because, in addition to heavy metals, they remove bacteria and viruses that conventional filters cannot. 

PATRONAGE

If the physiological reasons to ditch birth control aren’t enough, a chorus of female writers are growing to analyze the externalities of the Pill on the social-economic level. I’ve curated the best here:

Stop Putting Your Daughters on Birth Control, by Karolina Provokatsiya (pseudonym) on American Greatness

rather than instructing Sally that her virginity was something to be cherished and reserved for the bonds of marriage, my friend, whom I love, operated on the assumption that virginity was something to be lost, helplessly, like a feather in the wind. When she handed her daughter the little brown bag of Lo Loestrin Fe, she handed her the keys to a door she never should have opened. But the priority for Sally’s mom wasn’t that Sally not go through that door; it was that Sally avoid the potentially embarrassing consequences of going through that door.

Ultimately, Sally can’t avoid the fact that she lost something important to her. But because her parents passively avoided a deep and difficult conversation about chastity, instead opting for a shallow and dishonest conversation about how to cheat fate, she does not have the language to understand where she went wrong. She lacks the wisdom to understand her pain. And this kind of pain, the pain of loss, makes women act out in ways that suggest they are searching for something to fill a void. Temporary comforts. Sally’s mother is right to worry.

Birth Control Pilled by Katherine Dee on The American Mind

And now, a growing number of women on TikTok are asking, “Why aren’t we?” This trend might be the most revealing of all, as it’s fueled by the voices of average, everyday people. Type in “hormonal birth control” into TikTok or Twitter and you’re greeted with a wellspring of apolitical (and not, important to note, “New Age”) content about people who are concerned about the impact hormones have on their bodies. From the frivolous to educational, women are increasingly open about saying “No.”

Imagine a world without contraception by Mary Harrington on Unherd

Though not (yet) on ecological grounds, some countries are already restricting contraception as part of efforts to drive up the birth rate. Iran has ceased to offer birth control and vasectomies via state healthcare—a policy that explicitly targets the country’s slumping birth rate. In effect, for Iranian women, worry-free sex has become a bit like cashmere jumpers or safari holidays: nice, but only if you can afford it.

Should contraceptive manufacturing be expensively re-shored, in response to de-globalisation, we might face an analogous situation in Britain: birth control still available, but only as a luxury product.